PDP President Mehbooba Mufti has demanded an apology from Jammu and Kashmir ieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha over last week’s encounter in Srinagar’s Hyderpora.
The encounter mired in controversy saw 4 people being killed including two civilians.
Mehbooba Mufti led a led a protest march to Raj Bhawan demanding and apology and asking LG Sinha to take responsibility for the incident.
The protesters also demanded a judicial probe into the incident and the return of the body of the third person killed in the incident.
“Since L-G Sinha is the head of the unified command, he should seek a apology from the families of the victims,” Mufti told reporters on Sunday outside Raj Bhawan. “He (Lt Governor Sinha) will need to seek an apology from the people of Kashmir.”
Demanding a judicial probe, Mufti said, “They [administration] will have to take back the allegations that they [deceased] were militants, over ground militants and hybrid militants.”
After the encounter, police said building owner Mohammad Altaf Bhat was a militant associate, and the next day, they said another civilian, Dr Mudasir Gul, was an over ground militant worker.
The police also claimed that Amir, a resident of Ramban in Jammu, was a hybrid militant. The families of all the three deceased have rejected the police’s claims over vehemently.
While the police said that the fourth person killed in the gunfight was a Pakistani militant, Mufti questioned the statement. “We have doubts if there was any militant (inside). We haven’t seen any body. Was a militant really there? Whether the militant was there or not, there is a big question,” she added.
Hitting out at the administration, Mufti said they had banned all forms of dissent in the UT. “They have taken out the funeral of democracy… They don’t allow anybody to talk, anybody to protest,” she said.
The former J&K chief minister castigated the authorities for not handing over the body of Magray whom the police claimed was a ‘hybrid militant’ while the eyewitnesses and locals said he worked at the shopping complex where the encounter took place.
“He belongs to a poor family, whose father has been awarded for killing a militant, and his body has not been handed over to his family. This type of tyranny won’t improve the situation here, but instead will further vitiate it. And the distance between the country and J&K will further widen,” Mehbooba said.
“And if this violence continues, the coming time will be dangerous,” she cautioned. “The people have become so disillusioned or disheartened that neither they seek justice nor punishment,” she said.
(Featured image PTI)